Extinction Machine

Chapter Sixty-two

Turkey Point Lighthouse, Elk Neck State Park

Cecil County, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 10:52 a.m.

I stared at her.

“What do you mean you got us killed? Junie … what did you do?”

She hugged her arms to her body, but a shiver swept through her, raising goose flesh on her skin. “Joe … when we were on with your boss, Mr. Church, and those other men … I was scared. I…” She shook her head like she was trying to shake off angry bees. “It’s so big! The president, the crop circle … this is the kind of stuff I podcast about and write about, but now it’s here, it’s right here, and I guess I kind of freaked. I flaked out on you. And the thing is … I still don’t know how much I can trust you.”

“Jesus Christ, Junie, I just saved your life from a hit team.”

“I know…”

“What more do you want?”

She stood several feet away from me, near the top of the stairs, tension rippling through her as if she was trying to decide whether to tell me or to make a break for it down those stairs. I tried to get inside her head and see it from her perspective, but maybe she’d lived in the world of conspiracy theories and paranoia too long. Maybe a lack of trust was the only thing she could rely on. And really, who was I to her? Sure, we shared a couple of freaky moments of subliminal communication, but who’s to say that wasn’t brain chemistry misfiring because of all the trauma? Hey, it’s not like I’m not crazy already, so I could have been reading a lot more into my first encounter with Junie than was ever there; and I didn’t have Rudy riding shotgun on my sanity right now.

“Joe … I’ll make a deal with you,” she said at last.

“Can’t wait to hear this, but sure, go ahead, let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’m like this when I’m serious.”

That probably wasn’t as comforting or amusing as intended. She filed it away.

“Here’s the deal … you get us out of here, you get us somewhere totally safe, and I will put the Majestic Black Book into your hands.”

I stared at her.

“What?”

“That’s the deal.”

“You have the book?” I growled. “After all this … you have the damn book?”

“Yes.” There was some hesitation in her voice, but she repeated her answer. “Yes. What’s it going to be, Joe? Do we have a deal?”

I towered over her, glowered at her. I wanted to yell at her, shake her.

What I did, though, was smile.

“Either you are one cool bitch,” I said, “or you’re every bit as crazy as I am.”

Her smile was of a lower wattage. “Do we have a deal?”

I stuck out my hand. “We have a deal.”

We shook on it.

Outside, Ghost suddenly started barking.

Then we heard the helicopters.

“The Coast Guard! Thank God,” she said as we raced to the windows.

There were two of them, coming in low and fast a hundred yards above the blue water. Coast Guard helicopters are red and white, easy to spot against the sky or sea.

These helos were as black as the bottomless well of despair that had opened in my heart.

There was a puff of smoke, small and pale in the distance. It was a slender thing and I knew it for what it was. I’ve seen so many of them, up close and mounted. I’ve seen what they can do. A hundred pounds of metal and wire and chemicals; sixty-four inches long. Sleek and silver in the sunlight, moving at Mach 1.3. Nine hundred and fifty miles per hour. Like an arrow shot by a god of war, the Hellfire missile flew toward us.

“Run!” I screamed as I hooked my arm around her and hurled her toward the stairs.

Above and around us the world seemed to disintegrate into a burning fireball of pure destructive force.

Hellfire without a doubt.